


never were right

by dutchydoescoke



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst and Drama, M/M, Post-Time Skip, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-08-23 18:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20247250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchydoescoke/pseuds/dutchydoescoke
Summary: It’s been two years since Paulie’s last seen him and he still wants to punch the bastard.





	never were right

**Author's Note:**

> so this is a thing. idk.
> 
> warnings for mentions of canon-typical violence. theoretically an au i guess? because last we saw of lucci he’s being a shithead back in cp0 and being an attack dog for celestial dragons and thus nowhere near water 7. who cares though.
> 
> title ganked from hey monday's "how you love me now" bc why not.

It’s been two years since Paulie’s last seen him and he still wants to punch the bastard. Preferably hard enough to fuck up that _stupid_ goatee he’s got and maybe stain his too-pristine white suit.

Contrary to popular belief, Paulie’s not a violent person by nature.

It’s just that Lucci brings it out in him. Always has.

Back _before_—before he knew it was a lie, before he found out the guy that had become his best friend was a goddamn _fake_—it had been because something about Lucci had riled him up, every time without fail. The kind of riled that would end with either fighting or fucking and always, always ended in fighting with them.

He tries not to remember the near-misses where it almost came down to a coin flip as to which way it went.

Moments that were too close to going the other direction, to landing on heads instead of tails, where he’d push Lucci into a wall or he’d find himself with his back against the brick, Lucci’s hands fisted in his jacket or his arm pressed against Lucci’s throat. Where the world would go still for a moment and the coin wavered and he’d let his cigar fall to the ground and Lucci’s ever-impassive face would twitch with _something_.

But the coin always came down on tails, a trick coin for what turned out to be a rigged game, and they’d break apart and go back into Blueno’s and pretend it never happened.

Paulie tells himself he’s grateful for that now and it only sometimes rings hollow.

His brain likes to taunt him with _what if_ anyway. What if the coin had landed on heads, what of one of them—him, always him, because he has doubts now that Lucci ever cared—had broken the stillness and leaned forward and closed the gap. Would it have changed anything, in the end.

And Paulie has to remind himself that none of that would have changed the fact that Lucci was a goddamn government spy from the beginning and _everything_ was built on a lie.

The insidious part of his head likes to point out that Lucci had always been vague about his past, that the only lie is a lie of omission. As if that’s any better.

Now, the lying bastard is _here_, inexplicably back in Water 7, and Paulie’s spent two years wanting to make up for the hits he took back _then_.

Standing in front of him, seeing that stupid face that’s haunted way too many memories, that’s all over the pictures he has shoved in a box in his closet, that used to belong to his best friend, Paulie’s knuckles are _itching_ to knock him on his ass.

“Paulie,” the bastard says in a conversational tone, like he didn’t try to kill Paulie. Like it’s still two years ago and he’s joining them at Blueno’s—at the bar. Like they’re still friends.

And yet it’s also not, because two years ago, it wouldn’t be his real voice Paulie hears, but that stupid goddamn bird.

He wants to hit him, to wipe the perfectly neutral expression off his face, to see if he could make him bleed the way _he_ had back then.

Paulie could, really. He could try and see if Lucci’s still as fast as he was that night, fast enough to dodge. It would be so satisfying, even if he doesn’t connect, even if he just ends up swinging at empty air, because at least he’d _try_.

But he doesn’t.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s not that he’s trying to be a better person. But he doesn’t want to _care_ anymore, not for a goddamn _liar_, and not letting himself be riled up like it’s two years ago is a start.

(He doesn’t want to find out if it’s still a coin flip.)

“Lucci,” he says, in as even a tone as he can manage, and turns to walk away, because he wants to be done with this, with _him._

The hand that catches his elbow is a surprise.

When he looks back, that _something_ is there again in Lucci’s face and Paulie rips his arm out of Lucci’s grip before the coin’s even in the air.

“Don’t come back,” he bites out, two years of anger in the words no matter how much he tries to rein it in.

This time, when he walks away, nothing stops him. When he turns to look, there’s no sign it wasn’t a particularly vivid hallucination.

He tells himself he’s glad for it, that he doesn’t miss the bastard, that he hopes he won’t see him again.

He pretends he isn’t a shit liar.

**Author's Note:**

> the question i asked myself while writing and tagging this: do the & and / tags really apply if a large part of the fic is one of them wanting to beat the shit out of the other one?
> 
> i'd like to apologise to my best friend for the fact that this is the second one piece fic i've posted and it’s still not the zoro/sanji fic she asked me for. oops. (i'll do it eventually, i swear. i just have.......... three other fics demanding my attention first?)
> 
> (oops.)


End file.
